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Originally Posted by 58kcfan89
Been told more than once that they're ridiculously long. Not that it bothers me, but I guess I want to get all my other reading out of the way before I start.
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If you haven't read them yet, you want to stay out of this thread. There are too many spoilers in here, and half the fun is going through the rollercoaster without being spoiled.
You can skip straight to book 3 if you want to, but there are some differences from the first two books versus the first two HBO seasons that you would need to have explained to you. My wife did that and she has been fine once I explained a few differences to her.
It's worth reading them though. In my experience, the first three books go by very quickly, especially book 3 which has a LOT of action and events. Books 4 and 5 drag a bit and are very long, but they are still good books and do have things set up such that Book 6 should be epic!
I prefer reading books 4 and 5 together (like they were one large book) as I think the story flows much better that way and it is MUCH easier to get a sense for the timing of different parts of the story. In case you didn't know, Book 4 and the first half of book 5 take place at the same time but focus on different characters. I didn't really like having several of my favorite characters disappear from the story for all of book 4, and I never really got the proper sense of timing on events in different locations reading them that way. I did a re-read as my wife was reading them, and I liked them better switching back and forth between books 4 and 5. There are some chapter lists on-line that tell you the suggested order if you decide to go that route.